Courtesy of International Film Festival Rotterdam

Unpredictable Filmic Oddity

Venue International Film Festival Rotterdam (Bright Future), January 29 2015

Director Miguel Llanso

Cast Daniel Tadesse, Selam Tesfaye

Short proves sweet in Spanish writer-director Miguel Llanso's bizarro mid-lengther Crumbs, an outlandish and imaginative sci-fi miniature from Ethiopia whose $225,000 budget probably matches Jupiter Ascending's prosthetic-ear bill. Making potent use of spectacularly extraterrestrial locations in the country's sun-baked far north around the ghost-town Dallol, it takes an exotic and sometimes surreal approach to what's essentially a simple, touching love-story. And while not all of Llanso's flights of fancy get very far off the ground, there's enough going on here to ensure plentiful further festival bookings in the wake of a generally well-received Rotterdam bow.

If the 68-minute running-time proves a headache for programmers, Crumbs has an obvious companion-piece in Fanta Ananas' 11-minute Chigger Ale (2013), a similarly deadpan-berserk slice of lo-fi, Amharic-language Afro-futurism. Llanso is officially only credited as producer on that film, but Crumbs may stoke suspicion that 'Fanta Ananas' is in fact a pseudonym for the Madrileno provocateur.

Both works star the diminutive, charismatic Daniel Tadesse, who's first glimpsed here running through a Martian-desertine landscape clutching an artificial Christmas-tree. Dodging the attentions of a gun-wielding weirdo in Nazi uniform, Tadesse's 'Birdy' hurries hometo an abandoned bowling-alleyand the affectionate embrace of his partner Candy (stunning newcomer Selam Tesfaye).

But Birdy must soon fly his unorthodox nest. A long-dormant spaceship, which has been floating in the sky for decades, has shown signs of reactivation; Birdy, who believes himself of extraterrestrial origin, reckons the clunky-looking UFO is his big chance to get back where he came from. Achieving this goal involves a perilous journey to a long-abandoned city, where he ultimately must negotiate with no less an eminence than Santa Claus.

Set in an unspecified epoch after a "big war" and its consequences have severely depopulated the planet, Crumbs posits a micro-civilization where the mass-produced tat of the late 20th century is revered as valuable, even holy. Working on his biggest canvas to date, Llanso peppers his script with throwaway pop-cultural gags (referencing Michael Jordan, Justin Bieber, Stephen Hawking, Michael Jackson, etc) which yield more in the way of chuckles than belly-laughs.

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'Crumbs': Rotterdam Review